A GCCF-registered cat club without a website is invisible to most of the people it most needs to reach. Prospective members cannot find it. Newcomers to the cat fancy who might become its next generation of exhibitors and breeders have no way to discover it exists. And in an era when the first response to any question is to search online, a club that does not appear in those results has effectively opted out of its own future.
I am a Full GCCF Judge, qualified to judge Sections 1, 2, 3, 5 and 6, and I have been involved in the cat fancy for over twenty years. I have sat on club committees, managed shows, and watched clubs struggle with declining membership and falling show entries year after year. In almost every case, digital absence is part of the problem — and it is one of the easiest parts to fix.
The people your club is failing to reach
There are three distinct groups of people who should be able to find a cat club online and currently cannot if the club has no website.
The first group is people who are new to pedigree cats and want to learn more about a specific breed. They search online, they find breed information, and they want to connect with other people who share their interest. A breed club website is the obvious next step — a place where they can find upcoming shows, contact the secretary, and understand how to get involved. Without a website, this group finds nothing and looks elsewhere. Some of them will find competing clubs, or international resources, or simply lose the momentum of their initial interest.
The second group is people who are already in the cat fancy but new to a breed. Experienced exhibitors who want to add a new breed to their showing schedule, or breeders who want to understand the relevant breed club before they register, will search for the breed club as part of their research. A club without a website presents a poor first impression to exactly the people who understand what a well-run club should look like.
The third group is anyone who wants to enter a club show. Show schedules, entry forms, and judge lists all need to be accessible online. Exhibitors who cannot find this information easily will either contact the show manager directly — adding to an already substantial workload — or simply not enter. In an environment where show entries are declining across the cat fancy, making entry information hard to find is an own goal.
What a club website needs to do
A club website does not need to be elaborate. It needs to be complete and current. The core requirements are straightforward.
The website needs to explain what the club is: which breed or breeds it covers, when it was founded, what its purpose is, and how to join. This information should be on the homepage or accessible within one click.
It needs to show upcoming shows: dates, venues, judges, and how to obtain a schedule. If entry forms are available online, they should be downloadable from the website. If entries are handled by email, the relevant address should be clearly displayed.
It needs current officer information: the secretary’s name and contact details at minimum, ideally with the full committee listed. When a new member wants to get involved, or an exhibitor has a query, the secretary contact is the starting point. A website that shows contact details for the previous secretary — or no contact details at all — creates confusion and lost opportunities.
It needs results and records: show results from recent shows, and ideally a historical archive. Show results pages attract traffic long after the show itself, because exhibitors share them, and because people researching breeding lines use them. A club that publishes results consistently builds a searchable archive of the breed’s show history that is genuinely valuable to the entire cat fancy.
And it needs something that gives a prospective member a reason to join: member benefits, what the club offers, why belonging matters. Membership recruitment requires making a case for membership. A website is where that case is made to people who have never met the committee.
The membership problem no committee wants to say out loud
Falling membership is the defining challenge for most cat clubs right now. The people who have been members for twenty or thirty years are ageing. Younger breeders and exhibitors, who should be joining clubs and taking on committee roles, are not doing so at the rate needed to sustain the organisations.
There are several reasons for this, and digital absence is not the only one. But it is a significant contributor. A younger person who has never been to a cat show, who has recently bought a pedigree kitten and is thinking about entering the show world, does not have a network of experienced exhibitors to ask. They search online. If the club does not appear in those searches, it does not exist for them.
A club that wants to recruit new members in the next decade needs to be findable by people who have never heard of it. That means a website. It means appearing in Google when someone searches for the breed, the club, or upcoming shows in the region. None of this happens without a web presence.
The specific risks of having no website
Without a website, a club’s primary public presence is typically a Facebook page — if it has even that. Facebook pages have all the vulnerabilities that apply to any Facebook presence: they can be removed for policy violations, they do not rank in Google, they depend on algorithms to show content to followers, and they are controlled by whoever currently administers the account rather than by the club as an institution.
When a secretary or Facebook admin leaves the club, access to the Facebook page may leave with them. This is not a theoretical problem. It happens regularly in cat clubs, and the result is a page that nobody can update or, in worse cases, a page that cannot be accessed at all.
A club website hosted under a managed arrangement does not have this vulnerability. The hosting account belongs to the club, access is maintained by a third party rather than tied to any individual committee member, and a change of secretary does not affect the site’s availability or content.
What the cat fancy needs from its clubs
GCCF clubs are the infrastructure of the cat fancy. They organise the shows that give exhibitors their competitive outlet. They provide the community that sustains breeders through the long gaps between litters. They are the institutional knowledge holders for individual breeds. Without active, well-run clubs, the show side of the cat fancy contracts.
Maintaining that infrastructure requires clubs to be accessible to the people who have not yet joined them. A website is the minimum requirement for that accessibility in the current environment. It is not a luxury. It is the front door.
If your club does not have a website, or has a website that is outdated, inaccessible, or tied to a committee member who is no longer active, the cat club websites page explains what Cats Whiskers Web Designs provides for clubs and how to get started.
Frequently asked questions
Does a GCCF club actually need a website, or is a Facebook page enough?
A Facebook page is not a substitute for a website. Facebook pages do not appear in Google search results, which means they are invisible to people who do not already follow the club. Facebook can remove pages for policy violations without warning. And Facebook access is typically tied to individual accounts rather than the club as an institution, creating a continuity risk every time the committee changes. A website provides the permanent, indexed, institutionally stable presence that a Facebook page cannot.
What is the minimum a cat club website needs to include?
At minimum: what the club is and what breed or breeds it covers, how to join and what membership costs, upcoming show dates with venue and judge information, downloadable schedules and entry forms where available, current secretary contact details, and recent show results. A club website that provides all of these is doing its core job. A club website that is missing any of these is creating gaps that will cost the club enquiries and entries.
How does a club website help with membership recruitment?
By being findable. People who are new to a breed, new to showing, or simply curious about getting more involved in the cat fancy search online. A website that appears in those searches gives the club an opportunity to make a case for membership to people who would otherwise never find it. Without a website, the club is recruiting only within its existing network — which grows smaller as existing members age.
What happens to a club website when the secretary changes?
Under a managed hosting arrangement, nothing changes operationally. The website remains live, the domain remains registered, and access to update the site is held by the hosting provider rather than by the outgoing secretary. The new secretary is given access to submit updates. This is in contrast to a self-managed website where access credentials may be held by only one person, or a Facebook page where admin rights are attached to individual personal accounts.
Can a club website help with show entries?
Yes, significantly. Making schedules and entry forms available online reduces the number of requests the show manager receives for this information by direct communication. Exhibitors who can find and download an entry form from the website at any time of day are more likely to enter than exhibitors who have to request the form by email. Every point of friction in the entry process costs entries.
How much does a cat club website cost?
A club website from Cats Whiskers Web Designs costs £295 per year, which covers hosting, SSL, maintenance, and content updates. For most clubs, this is a modest annual expense relative to the value of increased show entries and new memberships. A single additional show entry does not cover the cost; ten or twenty do.
Who should manage a club website on behalf of the committee?
The secretary typically coordinates updates, but it is better for the website to be hosted and maintained by a third party rather than managed entirely in-house. In-house management means the website is dependent on whoever currently has the relevant technical skills and access credentials. Managed hosting means the website’s operational continuity is independent of any individual committee member’s tenure.
